Tuesday, 12 June 2012

Reaction: THE DOCTOR, THE WIDOW AND THE WARDROBE

Written by Steven Moffat, directed by Farren Blackburn, 2011

So, was it me, or is this basically total shite? That it
manages to be simplistic yet somehow still laboured, is, I suppose, a triumph
of sorts. But it’s entirely lacking in danger, far too well-equipped with
wildly hokey concepts (piloting a disguised-wood spaceship thing through the
vortex with the power of a mother's maternal instincts?!), and it even looks
massively cheap - all those big, plain sets feel a bit… season seventeen.

And was it strictly necessary to
CG the aerial views of the forest? Unfortunately, that says a lot about the level of
realism; it probably would've seemed more awkward, in such a cartoon, to have
shown some stock footage of the Black Forest or whatever, such was the
episode's distance from any sense of realism (I don't mean reality, rather any sense that disbelief
could be suspended about the whole premise - acid rain to melt trees which act
as power sources?! WTF? Once again, there’s a disappointing sense of Moffat
hurriedly and imperfectly filling in the gaps of a concept which was more
important that its justification). Even the acting was shit (Arabella! Holy
god).

The only spark it mustered was the scene on the Ponds’
doorstep – mainly, it must be said, due to Amy – which is odd as that felt
quite inorganically tacked-on anyway. Most damning though is its
total lack of story, the plot amounting to the Doctor arriving (alright, in
this case he was already in situ); something bad happening; and then… the Doctor
not even solving the situation - it simply progresses to a point where it all
sorts itself out. That's IT. The story amounted to a walk through a wood. I
don't like CS Lewis (who does?!), but at least The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, plundered here for its
iconography if nothing else, had the time and space for a plot that involved
more than four characters, and more than one situation.

I’ve spoken before
about how much I like low-key episodes, but, oddly, despite its small cast, I wouldn’t
categorise this as one: it's definitely leaning toward Moffat's occasional
flirtations with his predecessor’s more ‘Superman’
approach to the series (the in-orbit opening; the journey through the vortex),
yet the fact that it has so few characters just makes it feel sort of inadequate
or unfinished, like they could only afford to do it on a shoestring. And, like
the simple plot nevertheless feeling totally forced, even given the small size
of its cast, none of them really get to do very much, much less have the
opportunity to ring true as real people.

I really love Claire Skinner, but even she just got to play
a less funny version of her Outnumbered
persona. Which is telling, actually; she basically doesn’t have a character,
and isn’t presented as being important to the Doctor in a way other one-off
seasonal companions like Astrid were; that the Doctor goes running back to Amy
at the end just reinforces the idea that she is where Moffat’s heart (...or
whatever) lies, and makes me a bit dubious about how well he's going to cope with
her eventual departure and replacement.

The comparison to Caves
(which Moffat might regret making), in purely story terms, does TDTWATW no favours. Think of the
characters in that: Jek, Salateen (and his double), the colonel, the bounty
hunter dudes, Morgus, the president... Yeah, yeah; I know it’s longer, but
there aren't even equivalent roles here - everyone's a goodie: the mother, the
kids (companion-surrogates); even Bill Bailey's posse are mild-mannered even
when threatening interrogation, and even the nominal monsters aren't bad.
WHERE'S THE TENSION, bitch?!

There are some nice ideas, for sure - well, namely the idea
of trees growing together into a disguised tower - but co-opted into a 'sci-fi'
environment (the conspicuous nods to Caves didn't help this) just seems awkward
and ridiculous – ‘It's the future!’ has come to be used as justification for
trees spawning fairytale wooden monarchs, growing into towers apparently made
of stone, metal (and glass), and expelling their souls. (God, since when has DW had any truck with such a wanky
concept as souls? I know it's just being used as shorthand, but I miss the
series’ formerly relentless rationalist religion-bashing.)

And then there's the fact that, despite its simplicity, the
plot still didn't WORK: much is made of Madge being a suitable receptacle for
the trees’ ‘souls’... yet they're dumped into space at an undisclosed point
during the journey (rather than finding a home on earth?). And no word at all
on how exactly the trees’ spaceship/golf ball thing found its way into the time
vortex - what, the power of Madge's desire to get home? (It didnt even NEED to
time travel, for the trees' sake.) Give me a break. Why is Doctor Who lately so riddled with full-on ‘magical’ explanations from the
love-saves-the-day school.

Also, the lifts from A
Matter of Life and Death were unfortunate, as the association simply served
as a reminder of something actually packed with ingenuity, creativity,
imagination, emotion, and a satisfactory plot...

God, I found that
really dispiriting. I don't LIKE specials; I don't like the idea of a ‘Christmassy’
Doctor Who story automatically being
magical, but equally, I don't think it should be that difficult to achieve that
confluence. In advance, the elements of the story - the wartime setting, the
old house, the Narnian forest, seemed to have a lot of potential richness, but
in practice that's lost in the story's prevailing tone of glibness. I think
that's what’s been bugging me about this phase of DW: its increasingly one-note comic/smug tone. All the Doctor's ‘I
know’ bollocks, and still more self-indulgent references to ‘timey-wiminess’
and all that. It’s just becoming a bit... painful. There's no danger, no
originality...

I mean, I realise this is a bit harsh, as there were some
stories I really liked in the last season, but... it was all a bit depressing,
really. Which sucks especially because it shouldn’t be hard to do a Christmas
story. Creepy old house. Snow. That should write itself. Obviously it's a hard
balance to strike, as neither Davies nor Moffat have ever quite nailed it.

I'm even dubious about the Doctor's
positioning as goofy Santa, providing the children with hammocks and rotating
Christmas trees. For a nominally moral series, I'd hope that it might engage
with a less self-involved Christmas message: helping others, no...? It’s okay,
we have remote-control armchairs.